


I Promise

by SatsunonSavior



Category: Kill la Kill
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst, Character Death, F/F, Graphic Description, Heartbreaking, POV First Person, Promises, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Tragedy, Unrequited Love, Violence, Why Did I Write This?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-05-15
Packaged: 2018-03-30 15:12:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3941494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SatsunonSavior/pseuds/SatsunonSavior
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twelve years, two promises, two girls.</p><p>I remember when you used to look down at me with that infuriatingly calm little smile and you’d say;<br/>“I didn’t say I needed protecting, Nonon.”</p><p>But you did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Promise

 

We met when we were just children, a study in contrasts; I was small, quick tempered and arrogant while even at that tender age you were slender and solemn, fierce and resolved. At five you’d already won my admiration and my respect, neither of them easy to earn. At six, I made a promise to you that I would be there for you, to hold your hand forever. A child’s promise, easily made. Not quite so easy to keep.

At twelve we entered school proper and we were inseparable. Together we learned and together we grew, year by year.

At least, I grew. You _matured._ I watched you change from a slender, sharp-faced and stubborn girl into a tall, beautiful, intelligent young woman. I just got taller. And not by much, either. There _was_ one thing I did that you didn’t though;

  
I fell in love.

 

Slowly at first, but then faster and faster, with all the reckless enthusiasm of youth, and all its flaws and folly. I carved our names into trees, wrote odes to you in my diary and never, _ever_ let you know.

At thirteen we were friends, boon companions, growing closer day by day. We did everything together or near enough. We studied, we ate, we joked and we fought. I used to redden my knuckles on bullies and idiots, trying to impress you. Trying to protect you. You used to look down at me with that infuriatingly calm little smile and you’d say;

“I didn’t say I needed protecting, Nonon.”

 

But you did.

At home, in that house, in that squatting fortress in the hills, you needed protecting more than ever. The one place I could never be, the gap in my guard, the chink in my armor.

At fourteen you went home for the week, summoned by your mother’s call. The girl I knew, the girl I was friends with went away that day and didn’t come back. In her place was a robot; a crude automaton; a golem carved in the shape of the girl I loved. I tried to resume our friendship, tried to slip back into routine, but it was like trying to piece together a broken mirror, cutting my fingers on our shards and reflections trying to fix what was gone forever.

Still I tried, holding myself to your side even when you ordered me away, even when you told me nothing was wrong, even when you shouted yourself hoarse that you were fine, every motion of your body giving the lie to your words.

On the 14th May you broke down and told me everything. Your father. Your sister. _Your mother_.

That night I held your hand, just like I promised. That night I held you until you stopped shaking, stopped weeping- the only time I’d ever seen you shed tears, and there were no words to let you know how much your weakness meant to me. And that night I made a second promise to you, and I held it in my heart; hard and heavy as a stone, lest I speak and let it slip from my lips and tongue to betray us all. That promise was a millstone around my neck, the Sword of Damocles above my head. But it made you show me the first smile you'd had since the girl I'd loved had gone away.

At sixteen I saw you strike; saw you drive Bakuzan through your mother’s chest, saw you fight, saw you rage and hate and scream. And I saw there amidst the smoke and flames the girl that I’d once loved, the two of you stood there atop the stadium, the old Satsuki and the new; proud and tall and terrible on the cusp of victory.

I remember those few moments like they were yesterday. Like they were today. For me, they are. For me, they are eternal, unchanging and as heavy as the world upon my shoulders. I was there, of course, for the sake of a promise and the foolish love of a young girl.

 

_Sweat drips down my brow- I flick it away with a jerk of my face. Above me, the battle is going well. As expected of Lady Satsuki, I think, as your sword flashes back and forth, driving your mother back. A few more moments and it will be over. I watch, first in awe, then in horror as you strike down your opponent, only to see her rise again. I feel each blow you take like it was my flesh, my soul being tortured, and I spin on my heels ready to rush to your aid. I see Bakuzan shatter, hear you cry out in pain, and I can’t move fast enough. Hououmaru blocks my path, but only for a moment. I think about that a lot. That moment. It must have been longer than it felt. By my reckoning it was maybe three seconds. Three and a half. But when my attack hits and she tumbles aside, it’s not her that I see fall, but you._

_You._

 

_I see you fall to your knees, blood pouring from your mouth. I see you, fearless to the last breath, struggling to rise. I’m halfway to you and charging at full speed but I might as well be half the world away. I see you take a blow that would kill any mortal woman and spit back defiance. I see your mother raise her fist for the deathblow. I see you mouth a word, two words. If it was anyone else, I wouldn’t have known. I couldn’t have known._

_But I know you, Kiryuuin Satsuki._

_…I knew you._

“I’m sorry, Nonon.”

 

And then your finger hits the trigger and the world turns upside down.

 

* * *

 

 

I don’t remember anything after that. Not the battle that followed, nor the rout. I don’t remember the flight, the fight to escape, the fracturing and the chaos. I awoke hours later aboard the ship, a hollow shell of a girl empty even of tears.

Things are dire now. We were a little too successful in disrupting the Nudists for them to be victorious if they choose to fight, and our forces at Honnouji and elsewhere are dead or fled. No one has seen the delinquent in the aftermath of our defeat. We think she’s out there, still alive somewhere, in exile or in mourning for the sister she knew for too short a time. As for us, well. Without you we’re hopeless. Worthless.

 

Satsuki…you were the best of us. You were the embodiment of our desires, the antithesis of our fears. You were strong, smart, resolved. You were _beautiful._

 

The others grieve too. They weep and sulk and rage. Gamagoori cannot wipe away his own tears, he sheds them so frequently. Inumuta says nothing, sees nothing, his mind intent on everything he might have done to save you. Sanageyama rages, fighting everything and everyone. Mostly, he fights himself.

 

They grieve. But not like I do.

 

I left. I fled, like a thief in the night, taking nothing but memories. Well, almost nothing.

 

I took with me three things; the only things that I’ll need for the rest of my life.

 

* * *

 

It’s a cold morning and the sun is just hitting the tip of Honnouji Academy’s crest as I arrive. You’d just be getting up at this hour, and my eyes track instinctively to your perch, but of course you aren’t there. Your perch is empty, as are the classrooms, the corridors, the hallways. In the center square amid the mostly cleared ruins of the stadium, rank upon rank of scared looking students and families are penned in by COVERS; their unmoving white silhouettes like snappy snowmen bulging with muscle. In my hiding place at a third floor window I tug the blouse of the No-Star uniform tighter around my shoulders. The wind is picking up and its chill is sending goosebumps rippling up my arms to match the ones birthed by my fear.

That’s the first thing I took with me when I left. I can’t be a three-star anymore, not without you. I was supposed to protect you. We all were. My eyes rove over the crowd until I spot my target. She’s not hard to miss, and Kiryuuin Ragyou is making no effort to hide; standing with her hands on her hips atop a small stage, berating the corralled prisoners about the virtues of life-fibers. She’s holding herself rather stiffly if my eyes don’t deceive me; the last living testament of my mistress, perhaps? I grit my teeth as she steps forward. It’s time.

 

I raise the second thing I brought with me and roar out a challenge, high and thready, filled with fear and hatred.

 

“Kiryuuin Ragyou! Your life is mine!”

 

I drop from the window down onto the stage, rolling gracefully up into a run towards her. She turns to face me, that damn smirk on her face and COVERS flooding in from all directions, but I’m past them already, and Bakuzan-Koryu is in my hands, its slender dark-gray blade all but quivering in anger, desperate to avenge the death of its mistress.

 

I know that this is a fight I can’t win. I’m not Matoi, I don’t have a Kamui, a scissor blade, a destiny. I am not filled with glorious purpose. I am not resolved. I am not you, Satsuki.

 

But I _am_ in love.

 

I bring Bakuzan-Koryu down in a graceless arc hard towards her chest. She raises an arm to deflect the blow, but I twist my wrist and bury the blade into the meat of her arm. She looks at me, raising one eyebrow as if prompting me to explain why this would bother her at all. She quirks her lips into a smug little smile and I go mad with rage. I tug the blade free and unleash a flurry of strikes, most of which she doesn’t even deign to block, the few she does being turned away in little showers of scarlet and crimson. She flicks out a fist and I see stars. She raises one leg, delicately as any ballet dancer, and my jaw breaks. I taste blood and bitter tears, failure and bitter rue.

She lashes out with the back of one hand like a slap from the hand of God, and my nose breaks, the pain sending me to my knees. I cough and splutter, my breath sounding like the bloody bubbling rasp of a zombie rather than a woman still living. I look up at her, my mind racing and blank at the same time, thinking only that this is how Satsuki looked, before the end. She raises her fist for the deathblow. I close my eyes.

 

 _If you’ve ever been with me,_ I think, _be with me now Satsuki._

I feel calm, collected. I feel hopeless and happy. I feel content. And just for a moment I smell the scent of you; soft soap and roses, bitter tea and wildflowers.

 

Her hand comes down.

 

Bakuzan-Gako slides up from the sheath on my thigh and _slams_ into her, sticking fast into the crease of her elbow. She shrieks, more in surprise than pain and backhands me one more time. I feel something else break and pain becomes my world for a subjective eternity. When I return only a second has passed and I scrabble with my fingers against the floor. _Fates have mercy_ , I think, _there’s something I still have to do_.

My fingers close around the tanto’s twin, and Bakuzan-Koryu comes wind-milling down onto her arm, the two blades digging in together, forming a makeshift scissor.

 

Ragyou’s eyes widen. Mine open wider; mad and triumphant.

 

**_Snip!_ **

 

My blades shear together, tearing her arm free trailing life-fibers and blood; mortal and inhuman humors mixing in a scarlet swirl. She screams, really screams this time, and when her foot hits my chest it hits something vital. I must fly backwards, because when I wake I’m against what’s left of the wall, my breath bubbling and bloody, my body cold and shaking. I can hear her ranting from the edge of my hearing- ‘My arm, my arm, my arm!’ and I manage a smile.

Moments or minutes later I hear the explosions that tear the front of the Academy apart. I hear the cry of Nudist Beach operatives and their bizarre robots. I hear Gamagoori’s roar, Sanageyama and Inumuta yelling orders. I hear a familiar voice calling out a challenge, so alike and yet so different from the voice I long to hear.

 

“I’m here to avenge my sister, Ragyou!”

 

I would smile if I could. I’d hoped they’d come. My elites, my companions…they know me too well.

 

I shut my eyes and slowly let go of the third and final thing I brought with me.

 

_Nonon…you’ll help me, won’t you? Help me save the world? Help me stop my mother?_

I look up at her and smile.

“Do you even have to ask? Of course I will.”

 

_Do you promise?_

I take a shuddering breath and hold it. My lips form a word, two words.

 

_“I promise.”_

**Author's Note:**

> This work is dedicated to a few people. It was written on the spur of the moment, and is a poor homage to them. Nevertheless;
> 
> Calico Cat's 'Flawless Execution', and hell, everything else you've written.  
> Lemon Tea's 'The Thief'
> 
> and janewithawhy
> 
> All of you write far greater words than I, and this is dedicated to every moment I spend with my heart feeling like it will tear apart from gut-wrenching sadness over fictional characters. Thank you for reading!


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